Pure contentedness. (Yes, yes, I know it should be contentment)

But that day I was feeling contentment. I was feeling contentedness. When you're that happy you can make up words.

Pure contentedness, tears of happiness welling, the most at-peace moment of my life. Even knowing my deepest dreams and wildest hopes will probably never come true, that I am an insignificant player in the game of humanity, my touch upon this world will affect only a few, still precious, ones because I am just one little person. On a dusty beach, just after sunset, sea spray misting the view in front of me, and it’s getting darker, but in that beautiful summer way that’s barely noticeable until the navy screen has come down upon all but a few metres in front.

I am with my twin half, my best friend of a little sister, and my mum and our sook of a dog. At that moment, although I often think otherwise, I could not exchange them for anybody’s company in the entire planet. I am unbelievably, inexplicably happy. I don’t know why.

I feel so free and sure. Sure of what I am unsure of. But I am sure I’m sure.

I wearing a black and white boob tube and black shorts that show of the product of the day’s work, my new rosy tan. I look good, if I say so myself. This is important for a girl/woman not quite twenty and also important... just because. I like it. Please bear with me.

For the first time in what must be years I beat one of my younger, longer legged, siblings in a race. So what if she claimed to be quite tired and full of takeaway afterwards. Victory has never been so sweet. For the first time since I was eight I’m faster than one of them! I’m unbeatable, flying, skimming, digging my heels into the soft sand.

We wandered along in the grassy dunes between the beach and a nearby lake. We see an Australian version of Mrs Tiggywinkle, a wobbly, snuffling echidna. It is only the second wild one I’ve seen in my life and no creature has ever been so stately dignified and cute. We restrain the puppydog.

Back along the shore line. I breathe in the late sea air and feel like I’m rising above all my petty problems, a calm joy fills me. I don’t care what might happen next, what might happen tomorrow. Right now I have myself, my beach, my two girls and inner peace such as the Dalai Lama has never seen.

I feel like crying, bittersweetness over the fragility and transparentness, indistinct, ambigutity of this evening. Pinpointing it, my epiphany, if that’s what it even is, what this night really means, is like trying to catch smoke. In a week, will I even remember it? Will the feeling of unconquerable wisdom and hope remain? Might it feel like this night never even happened?

The memory may dim, the colours of the sky, orange, indigo, navy and purple-black fade and the love I feel for my mother, my sister, my dog, those fishermen standing knee deep in ocean disappear back into the mundane reality and rhythm of life.

I know I might not achieve great things, great novels, my university career I am embarking on could not be outstanding, I may not travel and live in all the exotic places I plan to. My biggest triumph might be having a child who in turn’s greatest feat will to have a child and again...

You, know? That may just be enough. Very much more than enough. Absolutely everything.